Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times as a Lieu de Memoire Revising the Image of the Puritans and the History of Early New England

& Translation Studies Journal homepage: http://www.eltsjournal.org Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times as a Lieu de Memoire: Revising the Image of the Puritans and the History of Early New

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& Translation Studies

Journal homepage:

http://www.eltsjournal.org

Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times as a Lieu de Memoire: Revising the Image of the Puritans

and the History of Early New England

[PP: 22-33]

Babacar Dieng, Ph.D

Université Gaston Berger

UFR LSH Département d’Anglais

Saint-Louis, Senegal ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article History

The paper received on:

26/09/2014

Accepted after peer-

review on:

12/11/2014

Published on:

07/12/2014

This article scrutinizes the representation of the lives of the 17th century

puritans in Lydia Maria Child’s historical novel Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times (1824) Based on the persona adopted by the author, the writer’s project

presented in the epigraph that opens the narrative, narrative voice, and the events focalized in the story, the author argues that Child’s re-visitation of the early history of the puritans constitutes a lieu de memoire which corrects stereotypical images traditionally attached to them and celebrates their contribution to the construction of the American nation To demonstrate this,

a definition of the concept of lieu de memoire is first provided; then, illustrations of how Lydia Maria Child shapes her narrative in such a way as

to turn it into a site of revision and tribute

Résumé:

L’auteur de cet article se penche sur la représentation de l’histoire des puritains du dix-septième siècle dans le roman historique de Lydia Maria

Child, Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times (1824).Se basant sur le personnage

que Child construit, la voix et le discours narratifs, le projet de la romancière décliné dans l’épigraphe qui ouvre le roman, ainsi que les évènements décrits, l’auteur s’efforce principalement de démontrer que le roman constitue un lieu

de mémoire qui corrige l’image réductrice et stéréo typique des puritains et célèbre leur importante contribution à l’édification de la nation américaine Pour se faire, il fournit d’abord la définition d’un lieu de mémoire avant de démontrer comment Lydia Maria Child construit le roman historique pour réviser l’image des puritains et leur rendre hommage

Keywords:

19th century;

American literature;

historical romance;

puritans;

lieu de mémoire;

New England history;

revisionism

Suggested Citation:

Dieng, B (2014) Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times as a Lieu de Memoire: Revising the Image of the Puritans and the History of Early New England International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies 2(4), 22-33

Retrieved from http://www.eltsjournal.org

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Cite this article as: Dieng, B (2014) Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times as a Lieu de Memoire: Revising the Image

1 Introduction

In her historiographical fiction, Lydia

Maria Child adopts the persona and

perspective of an anonymous 19th century

American who was tempted to write the

history of early times (Child, 1999 p 3)

Deborah Gusman (1995), in “Inalienable

rights: Fictions of political identity in

Hobomok and The Scarlet Letter,” (58) and

John Kaag (2013), in “Transgressing the

Silence:Lydia Maria Child and the

Philosophy of Subversion,” relevantly read

this pose as a subversive maneuver giving

her entry into the male dominant area of

American literature without being detected

By feigning to be a man, Child avoided “the

backlash against women writers that was

later captured so pointedly in Nathaniel

Hawthorne's description of them as

"scribbling women," Kaag says (p 51-52)

Despite the humility of the persona who

declares that his intention is not to compete

with precursors of the historical novel such

as Sir Walter Scott and Cowper but simply

to tell aspects of the early history of New

England not represented in previous works

(3-4), Child’s Hobomok is no less a true

historical novel that respects all the

conventions of the genre and a literary

masterpiece If we follow criteria established

by Edward Quin (2006, p.198) and Murfin

and Ross (1998, p.157), a historical novel

conforms more to standards of romance than

realism; it represents a significant historical

period and may include historical or

fictional personages or combination of both;

finally, historical events provide the authors’

insights into historical figures and their

influences or into the causes and

consequences of historical events, changes,

or movements

Child’s tale of early times conforms to

most of the above-mentioned conventions It

respects more the norms of romance than

realism Indeed, constructed from an old manuscript, the story is made of hypotexts that parody, derive, and revise antecedent poems, narratives and plays The narrative also revisits the significant historical period

of the settlement in New England against the backdrop of the crisis between the non-conformists and English Church The action that takes place in the mid-1620soccurs in real places: Naumkeak, which will later become Salem, and Shawmut and Tri-Mountain, which will respectively become Charleston and Boston Besides, the narrative includes several historical personages who had played prominent roles

in the management and development of New England On the one hand, there is Governor William Bradford, Governor John Winthrop, Sir Ferdinand Gorges, Charles 1st and Thomas Morton who occupy peripheral positions as they have little visibility as actors or are simply mentioned in the narrative On the other one, there is Governor John Endicott, a character who has a prominent position in the story Finally, Child’s novel is also a vehicle for the implied author’s insights into the puritans and the settlement period as well

In my analysis, I will pay more attention to the insights the novel brings into the puritans and the historical period of the 17th century and argue that Child revises stereotypes attached to the puritans and attempts to correct traditional perception of this period as barren and uninteresting Basing my argument on narrative discourse,

I endeavor to show that Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times humanizes the puritans and

paints them with indulgence Then, using as theoretical framework the concept of lieu de memoire and Hayden White’s concept that history is subjective because it is not a neutral restitution of facts but rather a story emplotted to serve specific purposes, I argue

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that the novel can be seen as a lieu de

memoire celebrating the fortitude,

perseverance, and hard work of people

usually described as harsh, severe, and

narrow-minded zealots and illustrating their

great contribution to the emergence of a

prosperous nation ranking among the most

powerful ones in the 19th century To

illustrate this, I look at the persona Child

creates, the epigraph that opens the novel,

the non-narrative comments, and the shaping

of the story I argue that the project

formulated in the preface and the epigraph is

reinforced by the characterization and the

narrative discourse Attention will be also

devoted to the poetic and symbolic language

of the novel and the figures of speech

2 Theoretical framework and

methodology

It is necessary to present the key

characteristics of the concept of lieu de

memoire to show that it is a useful index for

reading the historical novel of our focus

Borrowed from Geneviève Fabre and Robert

O’Meally’s History and Memory in African

American Culture(1994), the concept

designates a “historical or legendary event

or figure, a book or an era, a place or an

idea” crystallizing and secreting memory In

a lieu de mémoire, individual or group

memory unconsciously or deliberately

selects “certain landmarks of the past—

places, artworks, dates; persons, public or

private, well-known or obscure, real or

imagined—and invests them with symbolic

and political significance” (p 7) In this type

of site as well, the personal is often

conferred a collective meaning, and memory

creatively interacts with history It is a site

loaded with signifyin(g) because myth and

ideology are at play in it

Lieux de mémoire are privileged modes

for the marginalized and excluded to rewrite

their histories from their own perspectives,

to fill gaps left in dominant historical representations, and correct misrepresentations inscribed in them They are motivated by the realization that despite claims that history is close to a scientific field where practitioners should provide proofs and support their objective rendering

of facts with evidence, it is merely “an imperfect tale always open to revision” (p 6) For instance, awareness of the subjectivity, ideological orientation and biases of the representations by dominant groups and the realization that some aspects have been erased and misrepresented in the latter, urged some cultural producers to tell their own stories through lieux de mémoire The remembrances of events in these lieux

de mémoire have helped these writers and artists to account more fully for the silenced voices and fill gaps in left traditional archives Lieux de memoire have thus enabled them to alter the whole tone of history because the past is rewritten from their own perspectives through a creative combination of memory, imagination, and history Lieux de mémoire are thus appropriate channels of nationalistic discourse they enable writers and artists to invent histories, celebrate the past and or reclaim history from their own perspective Hayden White’s theory about what he terms the emplotment of history helps better understand the process through which narratives are shaped into lieux de memoire For White, histories are facts processed into stories He considers that these stories take their shape through emplotment or “the process through which the facts contained in 'chronicles' are encoded as components of plots Indeed, he argues that the event appears as a plotted story which only gains meaning in combination with other elements that give the history a certain tone as no historical event can itself constitute a story,

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tragic or ironic " (Leitch,2001 p.1710) In

my view, literary devices and the ordering of

events constitute good tools to emplot facts

and shape a narrative; however, like Mieke

Bal (1984),in Introduction to the Theory of

Narrative, I am convinced that non-narrative

comments or voice help confer tone to a

narrative For this reason, the ideological

orientation of a tale can be identified

through a close study of the narrator’s voice,

especially non-narrative comments

Consequently, my work looks at voice, plot

and literary tools

3 Child’s Construction of lieu de

memoire and the revision of the puritans’

image

Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times(1824) is

written in a period when women were

reclaiming voice, and it arose from a

revisionist impulse Until then, male authors

dominated the American literary landscape

and New England history was mainly

perceived through their lenses James

Fennimore Cooper, with his series of

Leather-Stocking Tales, and romances about

early American history such as The Pioneers

(1823) and The Pilot (1823), can be

considered among the most visible writers

Nathaniel Hawthorne belongs to the same

period, but his works revisiting New

England history and allegorically painting

the effects of puritanism and its decadence

came out a decade or several decades after

the publication of Hobomok: “Endicott and

the Red Cross,” “The Gray Champion,”

“Legends of the Province House,” “Roger

Malvin’s Burial,” The Scarlet Letter

Whereas some critics (Michael D Bell, Neal

Frank Doubleday, Daniel Hoffman Joseph

Schwartz and Marvin Fisher) consider that

Hawthorne works within the myth of the

founding fathers, affirms American

independence or democracy, and is

ambivalent towards “Puritan patriarchs and

regicides” who are sometimes even celebrated, others such as Frederick Newberry do not share these views Hawthorne is generally known for his indictment of puritanism and exposition of its effects on American society In my view, Hawthorne conforms to previous representations of New England tending to project the image of the puritans as harsh, intolerant, and dogmatic and which failed to truly exhibit their contribution to the construction of the American nation Apart from Child, Catherine Maria Sedgwick with

Massachusetts (1827) formed part of the

most canonical women scribbling about American early history Both Sedgwick and Child bring a feminist touch to historical romances, and they also revise history Some critics addressed the subversive dimension of the novel and Child’s pose to enter the sphere of literature dominated by men Indeed, Child gives voice to women in her narrative through the main protagonist, Mary Conant, Mrs Conant, and Sally Oldham However, this work goes a step higher by arguing that the novel results from

a realization that they were gaps in the previous representations of New England and the puritans, and it is a lieu de memoire that fills them and revises traditional interpretations Lydia Maria Child adopts in her tale of early times the persona of an anonymous American who wants to re-write the history of New England because he considers that most people view the region’s early history as “barren and uninteresting” (p 3) He is also aware that puritans were negatively perceived He states that people looked “back upon those early sufferers in the cause of the Reformation as a band of dark, discontented bigots” (Child 6).His intention is to revisit history to revise these two traditional ways of reading the history

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of the puritans and New England Indeed,

the narrator presents the defects assigned to

the puritans as determinisms when he

explains “the peculiarities of their situation

occasioned most of their defaults, and

atoned for them” (Child, 1999, p 6) He also

pays tribute to the puritans who made the

advances of the colonies possible through

hard work, perseverance, and faith The old

manuscript of the ancestor who landed on

the Isle of Wright in 1629 contained the

facts that could help him achieve such a

revision of history: it contains “the varying

tints of the tablets of history” (Child, 1999,

p 6-7) concealed by ivy clusters around

them

To revise the stereotypes attached to the

puritans and correct traditional perception of

the period, the implied author had to shape

these facts into a lieu de memoire The first

emplotment of the story is the use of the

epigraph from William Cullen Brown’s

poem, “The Ages,” and I shall come back to

its function in the part dealing with the

celebration of the puritans’ contribution to

the national construction Crucial

emplotment can be also situated at the level

of voice Narrative voice reveals that the

persona Child selectively focuses on some

events or parts of the manuscript to the

detriment of others to avoid repetition It

reveals that the implied author performed

editorial changes such as improving the style

to make it more legible for the contemporary

reader It also demonstrates that he also

omits events that he considers insignificant

The following passage illustrates this:

I shall, therefore, pass over the young man's

dreary account of sickness and distress, and

shall likewise take the liberty of substituting

my own expressions for his antiquated and

almost unintelligible style (Child, 1999, p 7),

He says in chapter I Some pages later,

narrative voice also illustrates omission of

some events when it says, in reference to a dispute between Oldham and Roger Conant,

I willingly omit the altercation which followed, which is given at full length in the manuscript; and I likewise pass over the detailed business of the day, such as the unloading of vessels, the delivery of letters,

&c., &c., and lastly the theological discussions of the evenings (Child, 1999, p 12)

Thus, the anonymous American deliberately selects certain parts of the manuscript for his counter-narrative But how does the novel revise the image of the puritans and how does it celebrate their contribution to the building of a prosperous nation?

The novel’s revision of the puritans’ image is mainly achieved through the characterization of Governor Endicott and Roger Conant, although other figures such

as Mr Johnson are representative The representation of the historical figure of Governor Endicott illustrates the revisionist impulse of Child’s historical novel The dominant image of Governor Endicott in literary and historical representations has been the one of a bold, dogmatic, intolerant, and zealous puritan who persecuted people with different religious beliefs Governor Endicott’s fame grew after an intense offensive he led in 1636, an assault which practically destroyed the whole Pequot tribe History has it that he enforced strict discipline in the settlement: women had to dress modestly and men kept their hair short; in addition, he was said to issue judicial decisions banishing individuals who held religious views that did not accord well with those of the Puritans Penalties such as ears and tongues cut off, public lashings, and bread and water diet jail sentences were pronounced when he was governor Indeed, Endicott had four Quakers put to death for returning to the colony after their

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banishment He notoriously defaced the

English flag because he saw St George’s

Cross as a symbol of the papacy

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s (1837) “Endicott

and the Red Cross” that Robert Lowell will

later adapt in verse represents Endicott’s

famous tearing of the sign of the British

ensign Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s

(1868) “New England Tragedies” portray

his persecution of the Quakers The image of

a zealous and hardheaded intolerant

dominates in portraits of Endicott James D

Hart draws the following picture of him:

“Endicott emigrated from England in 1628

and was governor of the Massachusetts Bay

Colony until the arrival of Winthrop He

held other important posts in the colony and

was several times governor Although an

able administrator, he was stern and

intolerant, and persecuted Quakers,

followers of Thomas Morton, and others

who differed in creed” (Child, 1999, p

199).Endicott is emblematic of the general

negative perception of the puritans, a

stereotypical image which buries their

heroic deeds

Through the characterization of Endicott,

Child brings rather new insights to the

representation of the governor and the

puritans in general Indeed, even though the

depiction of Endicott mirrors in some

respects the contours of the historical

personage,it debunks at the same time the

myth of his total bigotry and blind

intolerance In the story, Endicott is

described as a man with a “fine, bold

expression” (Child, 1999, p 36), a

courageous leader who successfully

protected his colony against the coalition of

the belligerent Pequods and Narragansetts

Although Endicott is described as fervently

religious and strict in his behavior and

management of the colony, he is humanized

by Child’s historical novel His zealousness

is not refuted but rather adorned as an effort

to protect the colony from the alienating power of Satan In the historical novel, he argues that people should observe a strict conduct to prevent Satan from keeping them under his influence: He had found by experience that “the more doubts we let in the floodgate, the faster gripe Satan hath upon our souls” (Child, 1999, p 38)

Child’s historical novel does not textualize Endicott’s bloody repression of the Quakers presented in historical accounts; it however shows that he bluntly rejected the doctrine

of “inward outpouring” the Quakers espoused and which holds that the Holy Ghost dwells in the sanctified believer, making him privy to direct revelations from the Deity His struggle to counter the progress of the Quakers is described as a reflex of protection, for the narrative explains that he believed that if that “egg laid in the Netherlands” was “kept warm” would represent a viper that “will hereafter spring out of its shell and aim at the vitals of the Church” (Child, 1999, p 39-40, emphasis mine)

Furthermore, Hobomok softens the portrait

of Endicott and exhibits his humanism For instance, narrative discourse illustrates that although he had for a long time banished wine at his table, he offered some bottles to celebrate Sally Oldham’s wedding because

it was the first wedding they had in the colony (Child, 1999, p 58) The narrative thus debunks traditional stereotype of Endicott as an extremely intolerant bigot His behavior towards Mary represents another example debunking his image as an extremely dogmatic and intolerant figure Though Endicott knew that Mary had a penchant for the Anglican Church, he did not reject her “for zealous as he was, he was not the man to look on so fair and so young creature and hate for her creed” (Child,

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1999, p 118) Thus, Hobomok humanizes

the chief magistrate who is presented as a

modest, kind-hearted, “bolde and undaunted

person, yet sociable and of a cheerful spirite,

loving or austere, as occasion served.” The

historiographical fiction also paints the

historical personage as humble: “he unbent

his stateliness on the day of the wedding and

talked courteously with people” (Child,

1999, p 58) Child’s tale of early times thus

corrects traditional images attached to the

governor

Beyond Endicott, the novel revises the

negative perception of the puritans The

characterization of Roger Conant partakes in

the revision of the puritans’ image because it

explains the puritans’ attitude as

determinism of their environment and

mechanisms to build strength that enabled

them to transcend the limits of their milieu

and hardships The characterization of Roger

Conant, the founder of Naumkeak and

epitome of the rigidity of the puritans, obeys

the logic of indulgence towards the puritans

announced by the narrator at the onset of the

story The narrator draws references from

nature, particularly water and plants, to

capture with strength the causes of Mr

Conant’s sadness, rigidity and harshness of

Mr Conant’s character Conant who used to

have “a cheerful countenance had now

assumed an unusual expression of

harshness” as a result of the frustrations,

privations and losses he experienced during

his settlement in Salem A young Calvinist

who had married the daughter of the Earl of

Rivers without the blessing of the latter, he

had moved to the New World to build a

better life and flee oppression and isolation

in England; however, he had been so much

afflicted by a combination of factors that he

became sullen, sour and harsh As a matter

of fact, Conant lived in poverty and want; he

had lost two of his boys and Mary, his single

daughter had just returned to live with them

To capture the deterministic forces that have altered the life of Conant, Child compares his life to a fountain the water of which is polluted by the turbid soil Using romantic metaphors, the narrative reads:“the stream of life gushed from the fountain within him, but it received the tinge of the dark, turbid soil, through which it passed; and its clear, silent course became noisy with amid the eddies of human pride” (Child, 1999, p.8) Plants and flowers are often used as vehicles in direct and indirect metaphors, and they not only contain a strong suggestive power, but they also help the reader visualize situations with clarity For instance, Child uses flowers as vehicle to paint accurately the situation of the Conants

in Naumkeak: “the rigid Calvinist, in that lone place, surrounded by his lovely family, seemed like some proud magnolia of the south, scathed and bared of its leaves, adorned with the golden flowers of the twining Jessamine” (Child, 1999, p 8) Mr Conant is associated with a proud magnolia

of the south, which suggests his displacement and transplantation, but also his countenance The effects of the environment on his appearance are shown through the barrenness of the magnolia The description of Mary and her mother as golden flowers adorning the magnolia conveys their beauty and nobility The phrase “twining Jessamine” shows how close they are and illustrates the touch of sophistication and joy that they bring to the wild area of Naumkeak The Jessamine is indeed known for its scent Roger Conant’s rigidity and intolerance results in Mary’s abandonment of the family nest and her marriage with Hobomok when Charles is tried and expelled from Naumkeak and though to have died in a shipwreck Conant suffers, but does not externalize his pain,

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which illustrates his humanity hidden

beneath his shell Roger Conant transcends

his intolerance and forgives her daughter at

the end of the novel He blesses her union

with Charles Brown, the young Episcopalian

who had by then returned to New England

The characterization of Governor Endicott

and Roger Conant follows the discourse of

rehabilitation of the puritans at the onset of

the novel It shows that Child invites readers

to revise traditional perception of the

puritans and rather look at their intrinsic

qualities because despite their defects, they

were bold people who brought light to the

New World and allowed building a strong

and powerful nation “Without doubt,” says

the narrator, “there were many broad, deep,

shadows, in their characters, but there were

likewise bold and powerful light” (Child,

1999, p 6)

4 The Celebration of the puritans’

contribution to the national edifice

The main project of Lydia Maria Child’s

historical novel seems in fact to construct a

lieu de memoire celebrating the great

achievement made in America thanks to the

sense of sacrifice, courage, fortitude and

perseverance of the puritans A study of the

intertextual relationship between the

epigraph that opens the historical novel and

the narrative discourse supports this reading

of the novel It was pointed out earlier that

the historical novel opens with an epigraph

taken from William Cullen Bryant’s poem

“The Ages.” The lines of the epigraph

read:“Then all this youthful paradise

around,/฀And all the broad and boundless

mainland, lay/฀Cooled by the interminable

wood, that frowned฀/O'er mount and vale”

(Bryant , 1832 p 585) They describe the

New World as virgin and vast land Like

Bryant, Lydia Maria Child writes about the

New World The epigraph constitutes a text

within the historical novel because it mirrors

the description of Naumkeak in the 17th century Like the space Cullen alludes to, Naumkeak is a vast and virgin land waiting

to be exploited

A closer study of the link between the epigraph and the historical novel reveals influences in terms of approach and discourse In this 1821 poem, Bryant makes

a survey of past eras of the world and the successive advances in knowledge, virtue, and happiness to confirm the hopes of philanthropist concerning the future of the humans Child’s narrative has a more or less similar project Animated by a sentiment of nationalism and pride about the colonies in the 1800s, the anonymous America celebrates the memory of the brave, hard working, and disciplined puritans He indeed invites the reader to measure the progress made through a comparison between 19th New England and 17th century New England In the first chapter of the work, the narrator looks at the colonies and marvels over the progress made since the 17th century He wonders:

Who in those days of poverty and gloom, could have possessed a wand mighty enough

to remove the veil which hid the American empire from the sight? Who would have believed that in two hundred years from the dismal period, the matured, majestic and unrivalled beauty of England, would be nearly equaled by a daughter blushing into life with all the impetuosity of youthful vigor? But though Johnson and his associates could not foresee the result of the first move which they were unconsciously making in the great game of nations—a game which has ever since kept kings in constant check-he, at least, was amply rewarded by an approving conscience, and the confiding admiration of his brethren, which almost amounted to idolatry (Child, 1999, p 100)

The narrator overtly invites the readers to take stock of the progress achieved since

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brave men, strong hands and noble hearts

such as Mr Johnson landed in Naumkeak to

build a new plantation in the wilderness The

purpose of this invitation is to prove that

puritans were the ones who laid the

foundation of the progress because not only

were they the ones who first landed in this

wilderness, but also they worked hard to

develop it

The non-narrative comments clearly

illustrate the ideological function of the

narrator in several passages In the one

below, the narrator’s intent to show the great

contribution of the puritans to the rise of a

free and prosperous American nation is

clear:

Whatever merit may be attached to the cause

of our forefathers and whatever might

have been their defects, they certainly

possessed excellences, which peculiarly

fitted them for a vanguard in the proud and

rapid march of freedom The bold outlines of

their character alone remain to us (Child,

1999, p 6-7)

The puritans’ great contribution to the

edification of the powerful and prosperous

19th century American nation is further

acknowledged in these lines as the narrator

comments that the puritans were the ones

who kindled the development of the colonies

with their desire for freedom, faith, courage,

and perseverance:

That light, which had arisen amid the

darkness of Europe, stretched its long,

luminous track across the Atlantic …….Men,

stern and unyielding brought it hither in their

own bosom and amid desolation and poverty

they kindled it on the shrine of Jehovah

(Child, 1999, p 6)

Whereas the epigraph and non-narrative

comments illustrate the writer’s project and

the ideological bend of Child’s

reconstruction of the lives of the puritans in

17th century Salem, New England, the

selective focus on events in the story serves

as a means to carry out the revisionist project

As a matter of fact, the narrator emplots the facts drawn from the ancestor’s manuscript in such a way as to illustrate not only the progress made since those days, but also implicitly pay tribute to the puritans’ contribution to the edification of the prosperous American Nation by focalizing their sacrifices, fortitude and hard work A key strategy to better show the achievements

of the colonies consists in showing the state

of extreme poverty, unhealthiness, and danger the puritans lived in when they came

to the New World The narrative exhibits how they lived in want and how much bread was scarce The puritans lived on hunting and simple meals drawn from their immediate environment—“roasted pumpkins, clams, and coarse cakes made of pounded maize” (Child, 1999, p 9) They hardly had any tobacco to smoke because King James had discountenanced “the culture of the `base weed tobacco'” in the colonies The first settlers had left comfortable homes to live in shacks Mary Conant apologizes for receiving Lady Arabella in such austere and modest apartments Like Mrs Conant, “who had left

a path all blooming with roses and verdure, and cheerfully followed his rugged and solitary track,” (Child, 1999, p 16), the latter had left the comfort of her English mansion to courageously follow her husband

in the austere and unhealthy plantation of Naumkeak The climatic conditions coupled with the poverty and bad nutrition in the colony caused great prejudice to both ladies’ health The narrative vividly paints their state using similes and metaphors comparing them to a lamp Announcing Lady Arabella’s death, it states: “the flickering lamp of life was extinguished” (Child, 1999, p.112) The use of the adjective flickering in

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the indirect metaphor creates a visual image

of vacillation that paints with accuracy the

state of fragility the aristocratic lady

Hobomok shows that mortality rates were

really high in new plantations through the

juxtaposition of the losses that strike the

settlers in Naumkeak Before Mr Johnson

who died shortly after her spouse had

perished from sickness a day after Mrs

Conant passed away, Roger Conant had lost

his two boys as a result of the harsh

conditions of life in Naumkeak To top it all,

settlers lived under the threat of constant

deadly attacks from the Indians, as the

narrative illustrates in the scene where some

Indians led by Corbitant are caught

ambushing the Conants’ dwelling

Child uses the symbolism of nature in this

simile drawing analogy between the

plantation of Salem and the olive tree to

paint vividly the losses settlers underwent

Reacting to the ancestor of the implied

writer’s good wishes from the king and

lamenting over the decrease of numbers in

the colonies, Conant replies:

I have little to say about our troubles, but as

for numbers, the besom of disease of those

disease and famine hath been among us, and

we are now as an olive tree ‘with two berries

or three berries in the top of the uppermost

bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful

branches thereof The lord’s will be done He

hath begun his work, and he will finish it

But it grieveth me to see the strange slips

which are set which are set upon our pleasant

plants, and when I think thereof, I marvel not

that they wither (Child, 1999, p 10)

The image of the olive tree with hardly

any fruits remaining on it helps the reader

visualize the situation in the plantation of

Naumkeak: it is characterized by human

losses and desolation The symbol also helps

illustrate the puritans’ resilience because the

olive is an evergreen tree able to grow on

rocky soil and resist drought, disease and fire

Narrative discourse shows that although conditions were harsh and difficult and they faced death, want and sickness, these puritans held on to hope and stayed resilient This hope and faith is expressed in this synecdoche, as Lady Arabella responds to Mary Conant apologizing for the modesty of the apartments they offered their noble guests:

No doubt, no doubt, Lady Mary,” answered her guest; “but there are strong hands and firm hearts, as well as noble blood engaged

in that cause I have heard my husband say our mighty kingdom was once a remote province of the Roman empire, and who knows where these small beginnings may arrive (Child, 1999, p 93)

She agrees that they used to have better apartments in England, but she is sure that the hardworking, courageous men, and noble men that were in charge of bettering their conditions would turn the new plantation into a prosperous place The phrase “strong hands” refers to these puritans ready to toil to develop their new plantation and transform the wilderness into

a civilized environment As for the phrase

“firm hearts,” it exhibits their courage and fortitude built thanks to their faith Finally, the expression “noble blood” refers to such aristocratic men as Mr Johnson who came

to build the new settlements from scratch The fortitude and resilience of the puritans is also symbolized by Roger Conant’s persistence to pursue his way to Naumkeak, the plantation where he wanted to settle, despite all his trials and tribulations

5 Conclusion

Most scholars who analyzed Lydia Maria Child’s historical novel stressed her

“significant arguments against patriarchal authority and racism” (Sderholm, 2006, p 553) leaving aside her revisionist project

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